Freeware outdoes Windows' built-in system tools

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	TOP STORY[/size][/font] Freeware outdoes Windows’ built-in system tools[/size]
	By Scott Dunn Most standard Windows maintenance tasks can be accomplished using the utilities included with the OS itself — but that doesn’t mean those tools are your best option. Whether you’re looking for an easier way to browse the image files in a folder, create a restore point, revert to XP’s Classic Start Menu, or customize your file associations, there’s a (free) app for that.[/size]

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The full text of this column is posted at WindowsSecrets.com/2010/02/11/01 (opens in a new window/tab).

Columnists typically cannot reply to comments here, but do incorporate the best tips into future columns.[/td]

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Love the tips. Specifically for the registry tweaks to enable faster startups, it would be VERY useful to know what sort of speed-ups you guys find when compacting, defragging and so on the registry. It’s hard to gauge what sort of improvement I’m going to see!

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Love the tips. Specifically for the registry tweaks to enable faster startups, it would be VERY useful to know what sort of speed-ups you guys find when compacting, defragging and so on the registry. It’s hard to gauge what sort of improvement I’m going to see!

By far the biggest improvements come from managing what programs are started at boot time. If you have XP you will probably not notice a difference from any other registry “tweaking”. Your boot time may be a fraction of a second or maybe even one or two seconds faster. IMO, that is not worth the effort and possibilities of trouble by trashing the registry. If you have either Vista or Win7 the Registry has a different architecture and is processed differently so you those “tweaks” are not needed.

Joe

--Joe

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A free utility that has impressed me is Search Everything by voidtools (website voidtools.com). It seems to find files from wildcard filename searches hundreds of times faster than the search facility built in to Windows Explorer on Win XP. I have no connection to the company, just a satisfied user.

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A free utility that has impressed me is Search Everything by voidtools (website voidtools.com). It seems to find files from wildcard filename searches hundreds of times faster than the search facility built in to Windows Explorer on Win XP. I have no connection to the company, just a satisfied user.

I agree. I use this all the time. If you ever uninstall anything check ‘everything’ you will be surprised. You can delete things from the list. I understand that this program is an integral part of Windows but Windows don’t advertise it.

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I’ll second the Search Everything app. Runs on Win 7 32 and 64, too. It only indexes the file pathnames, so it is quick. It’s helped me find many files, I even access it remotely where it runs on our server so I can help users find files that they have lost in their terrible filing structure of 10000 folders! Also recommend you check out http://www.ninite.com where you can automatically download and install this and many other apps unattended.

A free utility that has impressed me is Search Everything by voidtools (website voidtools.com). It seems to find files from wildcard filename searches hundreds of times faster than the search facility built in to Windows Explorer on Win XP. I have no connection to the company, just a satisfied user.

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Love these Freeware Columns too – However when I clicked on the link that sent me to STDU Explorer’s home page – it got blocked by MalewarByte – Stating that …

Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware Has successfully blocked access to malicious IP:90.156.153.20

Is this a false positive ???

Roger

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For old-skoolers… there are some nice free apps at

http://www.crashcoursesoftware.com

and also for XP users

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

where you can find hidden gems and scripts to
do those little things that Windows is missing.

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Good article. It pointed out some good resources that I’ll try out.

I am surprised that you did not mention any of the SysInternals programs. They are spectacular for troubleshooting and really digging into what is happening in your computer. Sysinternals Site As well Mark Minasi’s blog gives some amazing insight into how he uses the tools to diagnose different types of errors.

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I really like these tips but I like the Revo Uninstaller as it seems to me to get more of the registry settings that are left over and it is also a free program and I have used it on XP, Vista and 7 all without any problems at all and when run it will tell you if there is a newer version ready for download.

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I am surprised that you didn’t mention ‘myuninstaller’. This is the best that I have come across. It gives a tremendous amount of information on what programs are installed, where they came from and when,whether the can be cleanly uninstalled etc. I am a constant user of Glary Utilities but their uninstaller is not as good. I also use ‘Everything’ and always check after uninstalling to see what it finds left behind. Virtually anything can be deleted from its list. I understand that ‘everything’ accesses the information built into Windows but not advertised.
Glary Utilities is also one of the most useful free programs. Like ‘everything’ it accesses Windows built in features like system file checker, disc checker and others but which are not easy to access for average users. I use it also to shut down start programs or to delay them.

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I’m not surprised at all by what wasn’t mentioned. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of great (tens of thousands of not so great too) freeware tweakers, apps and other customizations that were developed in the mature era of a stable OS, namely XP. In fact, while Win 7 seems perfectly acceptable, most of the included new features are easily matched or outdone by my arsenal of free programs and one or two spectacular paid for programs that complement XP so well, and its only when I complete a fresh install of just the XP OS and use it like that for a little while that I notice that comparing OS to OS, 7 does do some things that XP cannot. However I usually end up using an alternate tool or installing the freware feature that already exists in 7 on 7 because the native one is just not as good, at least not yet.

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In this column, you recommend a program called “Absolute Uninstaller.” How does it compare with “Revo Uninstaller”?

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In this column, you recommend a program called “Absolute Uninstaller.” How does it compare with “Revo Uninstaller”?

Absolute Uninstaller is from Glary Soft, makeers of Glary Utilities. Unlike RevoUninstaller, Absolute U)ninstaller has Native 64-bit features without making you pay for a “Pro” version. And it does seem to have more features than Revo Free. I’m thinking of using Absolute U)ninstaller when I upgrade to a Windows 7 laptop, which will almost certainly come with 64-bit Windows 7 pre-installed. This is a great find!

-- rc primak

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Pagedefrag won’t work on my Vista64 Machine. Says it can’t load the drivers and that I must be an administrator. Of course I am! Please advise

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Pagedefrag won’t work on my Vista64 Machine. Says it can’t load the drivers and that I must be an administrator. Of course I am! Please advise

Once Pagedefrag is dl’ed, right click>properties and unblock if needed. Then right click and select ‘Run as Administrator. Mine defrags every reboot.

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Same problem

Once Pagedefrag is dl’ed, right click>properties and unblock if needed. Then right click and select ‘Run as Administrator. Mine defrags every reboot.

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Great column. I’m currently using many of the tools mentioned. I am looking for two other tools to help. I need a tool to find duplicate files on my hard drive (and external drives) and a tool font manager. One that will search my drive and find all the fonts. Then I can make decisions on both files. I am currently running the lovely 🙁 Vista.

Thanks,
Ken

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In the same coloumn, Harold Moss was wondering how to save Windows Update files locally. I agree that letting Automatic Updates do this for you is the easiest way. But sometimes having local copies can be a solution.

I’ve used WSUS Offline Update for some time and it works. You select which product it should download updates for. It then does it magic, and makes a simple installer for you. You can copy the updates to DVD or a USB drive.

Can be downloaded for free from the homepage at http://www.wsusoffline.net

Raggi

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We have just released a free tool for XP, Vista, and Windows 7 called the Shortcut Maker. It makes adding shortcuts to the XP classic menu very easy. Just right click on a folder, file, program, or shortcut and select Shortcut Maker from the context menu. Select the destination folder for the shortcut and click OK. Then, when you want to access the target, just click on the Start menu, highlight the folder, and click on the shortcut.

The Shortcut Maker suggests you create your shortcuts in folders named Favorite Folders, Favorite Programs, Favorite Links and Favorite Files. If these folders are not on the XP Classic menu, it will ask if it can create them for you. You can create a shortcut anywhere you want. Other selections available are the Desktop, the SendTo menu, and any folder found on the start menu.

If you are viewing a folder and want a shortcut to it, just right click on the white space of the folder and select Shortcut Maker.

To add shortcuts to your favorite programs to the Favorite Programs folder, just click Program Files, go to the program in the menu structure, and right click on the shortcut to the program and select Shortcut Maker.

If you have the File Open dialog open or the File Save dialog open you can right click on a file or a folder (or the folder white space) and use Shortcut Maker to create a shortcut.

You can delete any shortcut you create by just right clicking on it. You can re-organize the shortcuts in any order by just dragging and moving.

If you are using Windows 7, they you will need to first install Classic Shell from Source Forge. If you are using Windows Vista, then you should change to the XP Start Menu. Instructions for doing so are found on the Shortcut Maker page, along with a link to Classic Shell for Windows 7 users.

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We have just released a free tool for XP, Vista, and Windows 7 called the Shortcut Maker. It makes adding shortcuts to the XP classic menu very easy. Just right click on a folder, file, program, or shortcut and select Shortcut Maker from the context menu. Select the destination folder for the shortcut and click OK. Then, when you want to access the target, just click on the Start menu, highlight the folder, and click on the shortcut.

(etc. …)

If you are using Windows 7, they you will need to first install Classic Shell from Source Forge. If you are using Windows Vista, then you should change to the XP Start Menu. Instructions for doing so are found on the Shortcut Maker page, along with a link to Classic Shell for Windows 7 users.

Have you read the Lounge policy against self-advertising? This policy applies to freeware authors and promoters as well as commercial offerings or services.

Nice approach, though. I am interested.

-- rc primak

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VHD in Windows 7. This little known feature that is now built-in to Windows is what finally persuaded me to switch back whole-hog from Ubuntu to Windows. Windows 7 has made data backup and restore a dream compared to earlier versions. There is no need to clutter up your PC with heavy backup add-ons, free or otherwise. Because the included system backup tool is so good, I merely use the lightweight and free MS Synctoy for data backup. I found that rather than make a separate image and data backup, all I need is to make a system image file on an external USB drive. It’s very quick–it took me less than two hours to make the initial system image of my 500 gig notebook hard drive. Windows 7 backup images are compressed, so the resulting image file is only around 250 gigs–but will expand fully when restored to my system drive.

Your data can be backed up separately with Windows Backup and Restore tool, but there is a little known feature of that single system image that makes the time- and space-consuming dual system and data backups uneccesary.You can mount the system image, which is seen as a .VHD (Virtual Hard Drive) file in a subfolder of the WindowsImageBackup on your external drive. In the Computer Management console (which must run as administrator for this to work), if you right click on Disk Management in the left pane, you can mount that .VHD image as an extra hard drive. You now are capable of copying anything to and from that VHD duplicate of your system drive, provided you don’t make it read-only when mounting it. If you Dig deeply enough into the MS Technet site, you can find many scattered details about .VHD files.

I schedule a Windows Image backup once a week, but if there are any important files to backup in the meantime, I just copy them to the mounted system backup VHD, or wait for the scheduled daily Synctoy backup to take care of it. If you have to replace any corrupt system files on your C: drive, you can choose a restore point via “Show more restore points” in the System Restore wizard, and use a restore point that is located in the VHD. If you have an hour or so, you can restore your whole system, including the latest data, with this same image.

I mentioned that I used the free MS Synctoy on a daily schedule. I have it set up to copy new files directly to the system image VHD. Then, if needed, I can re-image my system, and all of the most recent work will still be there. I’ve been using this system for three months now, with no problems. As a believer in redundancy, I do keep a copy of my system images on an off-site drive, and I replace those VHD files with updated ones once or twice a month. I’m a photographer, and I make my living with my cameras and computers. I don’t take chances.

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Honestly, I used to use scads of little utilities, even some listed here, to accomplish mundane or repetitive tasks, but I’ve come to realize that the costs as counted in processor ticks, excessive memory usage, hard drive space, overall system speed, etc. actually made this practice counter-productive. If you dig deeply enough into Windows, especially Windows 7, there is usually a way to automate most tasks without adding dead weight to your system, such as through registry tweaks and small scripts–and you can find most of these techniques on Windows Secrets, or in this very forum.

I like a fast and responsive computer, and there are just a few utilities that I’ve found that can actually speed up a PC, which is the best way to make me more productive.

#1 on my must-have list is not free, but I feel it paid for itself in just a few weeks through helping me to increase my productivity. That application is Diskeeper 2010 Professional defragmenter. This version actually prevents hard drive defragmentation, and then silently cleans up any fragments that escaped the process. It runs invisibly, with no hit on performance due to only using idle processor time. The caveat is that by default it disables itself when running on battery power, so if you are off of the grid for an extended time, it has a lot of work to do when you do finally plug in. I have turned off this feature as I rarely work on battery alone for more than an hour or two at a time, so if it causes excessive battery drain, I have not noticed it.

#2 is called NTRegopt, which is a free registry optimizer that I learned about from Mark Russinovich of Windows Sysinternals. It is not a registry cleaner. It compresses the Windows registry files, removing the white space that accumulates, especially after installing or uninstalling applications. I run it monthly, and the results usually show an average registry files size decrease of 7%, or several megabytes. It makes the opening of programs, as well as booting up, noticeably faster.

#3 on my must-have list is that old standby, CCleaner. I use it monthly, including the registry cleaner function, just before I run NTRegopt.

I also set all three browsers that I use, IE8, Firefox, and Chrome so that they always clear the cache on exit. Chrome does require an add-on that is available through the extensions menu.

After 25 years of PC use, I’m realizing that as far as a PC is concerned, less is more.

Cheers.

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@Dixon Marshall —

To each his/her own. I prefer the nice user interface, wealth of system tools, and reliable backup and restore, even when Windows will not boot (via a variety of Rescue Media), as well as the personalized live chat technical support, of Acronis products. Yes, Microsoft can get the job done, but no, I do not want to go it alone with a tech-intensive interface, and backups which quite frankly often do not restore correctly. But if you like to do backup the Microsoft way, go for it!

As long as everyone has SOME sort of backup scheme, I think we will all be happier. Everyone except the Big Box Computer Store Geeks, that is.

-- rc primak

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@ bobprimak

Yep, to each his own, and you are absolutely correct in that everyone should have some sort of backup plan!

By the way, I used to use Acronis with XP, but I abandoned it when I went to 64bit Win7 (I skipped Vista, but that’s another story). The backup tools in 7 are not your father’s NTBackup. To me, the interface is quite intuitive and elegantly simple in this version. It takes one click to make a Windows 7 repair disk, in case of an unbootable system, and this disk has a rich set of tools, including “restore from system image” and “restore entire hard drive.”

I did quite a bit of testing for a client, and have found the new system to be absolutely slick and reliable. The VHD method that I mentioned is largely undocumented. I learned of the ability to update system image files with Synctoy completely by trial and error, and it “just works.” (Apologies to Apple).
I have not heard of anyone else using this system.

But, you don’t need to use my undocumented system, all you need are the original system tools. I like spinach salad, and my wife hates it; I wouldn’t try to force her to eat it 😉

As a side note, I used to be die-hard Linux, only grudgingly using Windows when I had to because Photoshop and Illustrator won’t run well on Linux because you have to use the WINE emulator. Windows 7 changed that, because I feel it is slick running and elegant, even more so than Mac OSX. And it is much easier and prettier than any flavor of Linux.

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@Dixon Marshall —

It is good to know there’s more than one way to back up Windows 7. I will keep your posts in mind when I upgrade to a Windows 7 laptop (probably sometime this year).

And I agree that Windows 7 will probably greatly mute the outcry from disaffected Vista users who kept threatening to switch to Linux. That switch, as you have noted, is not as easy as some Linux fans have said in other forums on the Internet. But I still think Mac OS is a bit more intuitive and easier for a novice to just use than any version of Windows yet devised. Personally, I would never get locked into the high prices and limited choices of Apple, but to each his/her own.

-- rc primak

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